From the Back of the Plane
by jennii.b
Summary: Set from the final sequences of the movie...Marion is Grace Marshall's elder daughter & is taken from the doomed flight just moments before the crash. This explores the intricacies of civilians dealing with the emotional side of tragedy & triumph as well as the vulnerabilities of those trained to it.
1. at the back of the plane

"Dad! Your turn!" Marian Marshall shouted at her father.

"Like hell-get going!"

The parajumper behind her looked like he was going to wet his pants. Major Caldwell nearly laughed aloud.

"Ms. Marshall," he said diplomatically, "No father is going to go before his offspring. Right that down and memorize it."

The Secret Service Agent hissed. "We need to be moving."

"Mom and Alice are on board. Go!" Marian urged.

"Mr. President," the PJ interrupted. "With your permission, sir?"

James Marshall had no idea what the man intended, but he wasn't standing close enough to him to be a threat. In fact the man was standing behind his elder daughter. "Go for it, son," he muttered with a sharp nod.

The air force officer acknowledged with a nod and yanked the girl around suddenly, snapping the carabineer in place, then holding both her wrists in the air while he secured it one-handedly. It earned him a couple of hard kicks, but he managed to bring his body around when she went after the pride and joy with her knee. He bore the bruise proudly.

"Go on, sweetheart," Major Caldwell shouted. "Your dad's right behind you."

"Sure thing," the president agreed.

She nodded, her face set and serious as the man behind her crossed his arms over her chest and spoke quick, terse instructions in her ear.

"Got it?" he finished.

She nodded. "I've got it. Let's go. The sooner we get over the sooner you send a team back for the others, yes?"

"You got it, ma'am." He felt her tense as they slipped into the slipstream. He admired greatly that she didn't fight him and didn't scream. Especially when they started slipping backwards halfway through. "Just hang on," he urged. "They'll get it sorted!"

She nodded. "What's your name?" she asked.

"Ramstead, ma'am. Taylor Ramstead. Tip to friends."

"Are we friends now?" she laughed over her shoulder at him. The planes were dead even now and they were hanging in the middle.

The young man smiled at her, his teeth white and even. "I have a lot of friends who wouldn't trust me to hold onto them like this," he told her.

"Well, Lt. Ramstead, you have a crazy job."

He nodded. "The hours are crazy. The pay scale's crazy. But you get to travel, meet interesting people, and the job itself is pretty okay, really."

Marian shook her head and let out a long breath. They were making progress now. She glanced back at the plane and caught the third engine smoking and sputtering. The only tell on her face was a slight tightening and the way she pressed her lips together. Tip turned around to check it out for himself.

Bad. This was bad.

And...getting worse the longer he watched. What the hell was going on back there?

"Shit. Listen-the second one of the boys has your arm I'm unclipping and going back. Grab hold of something and hang onto it, because I won't be there to catch you. Roger?"

"Roger, Lieutenant. Godspeed."

He would have shoved her forward and done just that had not the cable popped out of its mooring. His bud caught his harness just as he would have slipped backward on the line. Which was actually good, because the last thing whoever was hanging on that line needed was his 6'4", two-hundred pound frame slamming into him.

"Daddy!" Alice screamed. Grace caught Marion and hugged her to her side, all the while trying to keep Alice from straying too near the back of the plane.


	2. bumps, bruises, and broken hearts

Tip was nursing the arm that Goldie had damn near pulled out of socket-both elbow and shoulder-when the older of the president's daughters ventured carefully into the pit.

"Is it okay if I'm in here?"

Tip sat up, shaking off the ice pack he'd been balancing. "What's your security clearance?" he joked lamely. He wasn't in the mood and neither was she, probably, but he didn't know what the regs were when being confronted by a member of the first family while wearing just your undershirt. He'd stood, as his mother's raising had taught him, but that was the extent of his protocol training.

"Probably nowhere near what yours is," she told him, sinking to the bench that ran the middle of the cabin. "You pulled a muscle?"

He shook his head. "Wasn't me. Goldman was helping and he jerked me pretty hard to get me centered. It's nothing."

"Yeah, right. Special ops guys are the kind that ask for an aspirin when they've got broken bones they're hiding. And, no offense, but they're the most normal of you. All the Air Force guys I know think they're special just for wearing blue."

Tip forced a grin. "We aren't?"

She shook her head. "You lost some brave guys last night and this morning. We lost a bunch too."

Now what the hell was he supposed to say? "It's part of the job, Miz Marshall. Nobody goes into this line of work- -military or the secret service, either one- -without the knowledge that someday it could be you on the line."

"Do you see their faces when you close your eyes?" she asked.

He couldn't lie to her. She'd seen too much. So he nodded gently.

"The man who went down on Air Force One-he was your partner, wasn't he?"

"One of them, yeah."

"Was he married? Children? Pets? Girlfriends?"

Tip shook his head. "Single as could be. Nobody in his social life just now. No pets, no children, no living relatives that I know of-nothing to worry about. Nobody waiting for him to come home, nobody to cry when they fold the flag."

"Will you receive it for him?" she asked.

Tip shrugged. "I don't know. I don't know what they do for guys like us. I've never asked."

"But he'll qualify for a military funeral with full honors, yes?" she confirmed.

Tip nodded. "We'll do it right, then go get drunk after. Unless we're still under wraps."

"My dad can probably take care of that. And you won't be on mission prep if you're hurt, so at least you'll be there."

Tip arched a brow at her. "I'm not incapacitated."

"You found an ice pack at two-thousand feet. You're obviously feeling the slightest of twinges, Lieutenant."

"Well keep your mouth shut about it, okay, princess?"

She simply patted the seat next to her and let her head fall back.


	3. funeral movements

The next time he saw her he didn't recognize her right off. His shoulder was fine, his elbow was still giving him a hard time, but he'd dressed out and presented for his friend's memorial. He knew the first family would be attending. They'd attended all the funerals. Which was huge of them. Quite the gesture.

Except that it took the focus off the family of the dead and made the story about them again.

Still, he was trying real hard not to resent that.

After the ceremony Tip watched Marian place a rose next to the stone. She dipped into her pocket and came up with a medallion of some sort on a long chain. Secret service agents stood guard as she looped it around the top part of the cross so that it dangled over his friend's name.

"What is that?" he asked.

"Saint Jude...for lost causes." There was a moment of silence. Tip continued to stand next to her while she fought tears. "To say I'm sorry," she explained at last.

"You didn't kill 'im," he told her offhandedly.

She nodded. It wasn't agreement and he knew it immediately. "He might have made it out with Dad if I hadn't argued with him. They all might have had those few more seconds to get out, to get off that plane," she confessed through her tears.

"Aw, Jesus," Tip murmured. He reached out his hand in a show of consolation. He didn't want to see her cry. He sure as hell didn't want her living with any misplaced guilt. It was pure instinct that had him turning toward her when her face dropped to his shoulder.

Tip's free hand came up to cover her face, shielding her from the press that stood just outside-always just on the perimeter of everything the Marshall family did. His fingers linked with hers through the thick gloves each wore.

"It's not your fault," he said thickly. "None of it's your fault. If we'd gotten there sooner, let Jimmy down faster, hooked up differently...you can't let it eat you. You make the best decisions you can at the time and then you put it to bed. The hijackers who illegally boarded another country's property are ultimately at fault. The damn traitor who helped them do it is the one responsible for Jimmy's death. You can't let it get to you. You just have to shut it down..."

Marian sobbed against his shoulder. A glance around showed that their little display had caught the attention of the D.C. types-the admirals and generals as well as some prominent members of the senior staff. _Shit._ Just what he needed. He hadn't started this, but nobody was going to care.

"I don't know how to make it stop," she told him. "I couldn't even remember what he looked like; I had to have somebody pull his jacket."

_Oh, God_. How was he supposed to answer that? They were cannon fodder. Nobody was supposed to recognize them because nobody was supposed to know they'd been there. She was surrounded by invisible people all the time. _But she cared enough to find out_.

And that was the kicker.

"He'd have appreciated all the fanfare," Tip told her. "You did good with that. Made it important."

"He saved our lives-you all did. I know it was a team effort. I just hate being responsible for his life being over."

"Princess, you're too sweet for this game," Tip said softly.

"You'll wake him now?" she asked, still not looking up. She felt the man's nod. "At a bar or at the barracks or what?"

"We'll go on over to the O Club," Tip shared. "No gossip-mongers waiting there. You're not allowed to get wasted in your barracks. Gentlemen are held to higher standards than that. Plus none of us is actually stationed here, so we're all on leave-or TDY in some cases-to be able to bury him up here. We're in the transient quarters."

"On base," she nodded. "No civilians?"

Tip would never know what possessed him to open his mouth just then. But he'd be grateful for it for the rest of his life.

"Do you want to come? Hear us tell some God-awful stories that we've all told six hundred times before?"

She hesitated and he kicked himself. He was still looking down at her when she lifted her face slightly and swiped at the moisture on her cheeks. She nodded before she met his eyes.

"Do you mind? I understand if the grief is private. I don't know why I can't stop thinking about him in particular."

"It's fine," Tip assured her. "So long as you drink either beer or whiskey it'll be fine."

She nodded at him.

"Do you need to clear it with some of these people here?" he asked.

Marian's tongue slipped out to wet her lips as she considered. "Let me just check in real quick-let them know I'm not riding home with them," she asked.

Tip nodded. "I'll wait here."

He turned back to his friend as she trotted across the immaculately maintained lawn. Garden of Stones. That's how a book described the cemetery. Tip looked around and then back down at the marker.

"You're in good company, buddy," he told the dead man. "Got to come home to stay here with people who understand us and what we do and why. Nobody docking your pay or threatening to knock off any rank when you pull stunts. Nobody on your case about haircuts or shiny shit. You made it." He bent to touch the cold stone with his bare hand. The ice-cold fingers trailed over the silver chain. "Save a place for me. I'll miss you."

Tears ran down his own cheeks when he turned. Instead of his brethren he reached for the young woman standing at the back edge of the rows of chairs that had been placed. He ducked his head briefly onto _her_ shoulder-an uncharacteristic display-before leading her to the car he'd rented at the airport. His partners each said their own private goodbyes and would follow him.

She learned a lot about the men they were that night. A lot about the kind of people they were. The kind of clan.

And was moved by what she found out.

The newspapers the next day led with the image of the handsome young man in the formal uniform-with a sling on his arm-embracing the president's daughter.


	4. talking to someone

"Have you considered talking to someone?" Tip asked, leaning over to steal a potsticker.

"What are you talking about?"

"The accident - - have you seen anybody about it?"

She frowned at him. "I think you've had too much MSG. What accident are you talking about? _Who_ are you talking about?"

Tip sighed and put his carton aside. "I think you're having a hard time dealing with what happened on Air Force One. I think - - if you're not already seeing one - - that you should consider talking to a doctor about it."

Marian's eyes froze. "You think I need to see a shrink?"

Tip shrugged loosely. "I think it's something you should consider. You seem to be having a really hard time putting it away."

She stared at him. "I let innocent people get killed. I watched them die. And at least a couple died as a direct result of my actions-"

"It wasn't your fault, baby," he said softly, scooting close to her.

"I'm not going to put it away, Tip. I can't."

He pressed a kiss to her silky crown. Her hair was as black as her mother's, her face and shoulders just as narrow and delicate. Only in her height and her heart was she her father's child. It was interesting, to see them and recognize how beautifully she would age.

"I don't want you to forget them, Marian. I just want you to make it through the night. I want you to go one day without crying."

"Everybody grieves differently," the stubborn young woman in his arms argued.

"But I think this is different...deeper." He felt the dampness of her tears seep through his t shirt. "What happened up there was a terrorist attack, Marian. An attack on you as an individual as well as on our country. I would do anything I could to wipe those hours out of you - - to take away those images and those memories. I've been there. I know what it's like to see people tortured and to deal with the aftermath. And I am telling you, baby-" She felt his arms tighten around her. "I would give my soul to be rid of the sounds and smells that remind me of it. I hate that you were exposed to that. But you can't let it fester inside you. Some people need more help dealing with it."

"You think I'm going crazy?" she sniffled.

He smiled and rocked her on the mattress. "I think you have what's known in our circle as Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome."

"Did you have to see a government shrink?"

He shrugged. "I have to see one all the time. It's part of our mission training and debriefing process. I didn't have a whole lot of trouble this time - - even though - - but a couple years ago a couple of us ended up in a really tight spot and we called in some artillery and...it was just bad, Marian. Every time I closed my eyes and a lot of the time when they were open scenes from that nightmare would just pop up and try to pull me down. So, yeah, I had to see a specialist for a while. But it worked and I can sleep again and they let me stay in," he said cheerfully, his arms still like a vise around her.

"You would have been so young," she murmured. "You were on a mission?"

He nodded. "I was. I was too young to realize I was too young. And, so long as I kept making it through nobody else really cared."

Marian lifted her face to meet his eyes. "Does your unit have somebody they use - - maybe a military doc or somebody?"

He nodded, wiping her cheeks with his palms.

"Can I see him, too?"

Tip shrugged and nodded at the same time. "When I get back I'll ask her about it," he promised.

"Her?"

"Her. Colonel Harriet Bogsbey. She looks like Mr. Magoo with a grey bun. She's been doing this-I swear to God-since the Anglo-Saxon wars. But she's good. She doesn't make you feel bad about feeling bad. I hated a lot of people - - all up and down both sides of the chain of command - - after I got back from Bosnia. She let me go right on hating but made me find a place to keep it so that I could keep standing with the ones who were trying to make a difference."

"Was my dad one of the people you hated?"

"Nah. He wasn't in office yet. As a matter of fact, what happened is one of the reasons I voted for him. I wanted somebody who'd been there to be calling the shots. I couldn't help but feel like a president who'd made a career flying rescue ops wouldn't forget about the ones on the ground."

Marian nodded thoughtfully at him as he reached for a glass of wine. "You voted for my dad afterward? So it was what? Three? Nearly four years ago? You were a baby!"

Tip laughed. "I wasn't quite _that_ green. But, yeah. I was. I was your age."

"Does it bother you?" she asked.

"To be _seeing_ the Commander in Chief's daughter? I get ribbed for it a little. A lot of the guys don't realize. I get your letters and they know I come up here on long weekends, but they don't really _know_ where we're so careful about pictures and all. My core group knows and that's cool. They're cool with it. They know how we met and why and it's not as big a deal as it could be in other circumstances."

"Does the age gap bother you?"

Tip shook his head. "It'd bother me if it was _my_ daughter dating a twenty-six-year-old. And I think it'd be creepy if I was twenty and you were fourteen."

She laughed and hit him. "You're not _that_ much older!"

"I will be on Saturday."

She stuck that aristocratic nose in the air. "At which point you'll be _five_ years older than me-for all of _four and a half months_."

"Got it all worked out?"

She grinned and nodded. "Just in case my dad asks."

Tip scoffed. "Princess, if your dad knows he's had my file pulled and knows everything down to how often I get my hair trimmed and what color socks I'm wearing. Which makes me guess that he's still in the dark about just _who_ you're entertaining up here."

Marian shrugged and took the glass out of his hand before he could refill it again. "Dating is hard on him. It's harder now because my sister is joining in on the conversations. _Knowledgably_ joining in."

"Ouch."

"You said it," she told him. Her arms stretched out to take his hands in hers. "Now, about those socks..."

…

The reporter caught up with the girls on a shopping expedition. Marian shoved Alice toward the secret service agent in a pre-arranged fake-out. Better that attention should focus on the older girl while they got the younger one in the car.

"Miss Marshall!" one called. "Rumor has it you've been seen around town with a gentleman!"

Marian laughed. "Just one?"

"Are you confirming that you're dating?" he asked.

"This is what your newspaper wants to know?" She smiled broadly. "I have had permission to date for several years now-at least as far as my mother's concerned. My father would prefer us to wait a few more decades at least."

"So is there a romance?" another persisted.

Marian shrugged. "I'm talking to someone. But, professor, I am also focused hugely on school. I have a thesis that I'm working on and a full class load this semester and I'm just going to enjoy the holidays."

"So you're putting the hijacking behind you?" one of the short shits in the back asked.

Her smile flickered and changed. Every camera focused on her caught it. There was a pensiveness in her eyes. "I don't think it'll ever be _behind_ us. But we have to move forward nonetheless. I hope that every time one of your stations airs another special on it or does another aftermath interview or revisits it even briefly that everyone will join us in remembering the ones we lost that night. And I hope - - especially this time of year - - that in addition to giving to their usual charities that maybe a few extra people will be inspired to give to survivors' funds. There's a link on my facebook page to some of the reputable organizations I've had the time to check out. And I hope that if you'd like your organization considered that you'll contact me as well. Thank you."

Marian's agent held out her hand to help her into the car as the poised young woman waved gently to the small crowd. _Locusts_, she thought.

"You do that well, ma'am."

Marian's eyebrows went up.

"You make it about someone else - - and you're always encouraging people to put their money where their mouths are. It's something I admire about you."

Marian grinned as Alice leaned up against her. "I admire it about you, too. I don't know if I'll ever be able to talk off-the-cuff like that," she confessed.

"Hours and hours and hours with the White House press office," Marian confided. "They pepper you with questions, you practice giving non-answers that won't offend anyone. I just like to put my personal agenda on it."

"You do it well, Miz Marshall," the agent told her again.


	5. work harder

"Tell me again what you're going to get?" Tip shouted into the phone. He turned around, trying to find an angle that would deflect the surrounding chaos so he could concentrate on her voice over the scratchy connection.

"A master's degree. Economics."

"I thought that's what you said. So you're really going to do it with numbers?"

"I'm really going to do it with numbers. You use what you've got, I'll come up with real solutions."

"Ha ha ha. What does your dad think?"

"That the world has enough accountants and that I've been in college for a long time now. I should pick a major and stick with it."

"Don't you have a pretty good degree as it is?"

"Yeah. But this gives me something to do while you're off playing G.I. Joe."

"I love you, Marian. I was thinking that when you got done with school that we'd get married."

"About damn time. I'll quit tomorrow. How's day after for you?"

"We've only known each other a little while, princess! I was waiting to see if you'd come to your senses! There was concern that maybe you'd just latched onto me in a stressful situation and that you might snap out of it."

"I love you, Tip. I've been hoping for a while now that that's where this was going."

"So, honestly, do you have to finish this thing first?"

She grinned over the long-distance line. "I'll marry your ass the next time you step foot in-country if you'll have me!"

Tip laughed and hooted. "I'll get a ring. We'll do it right. Make sure your dad knows what date you set so that he can schedule wars and crap around it."

"Any idea when you're coming back?"

"Couple more days. No more than a week. They didn't drop that much kit off this last time and nobody's scheduled for the phone later on this week. That's usually a sign that they're about ready to pack it up."

"Because you've trained a good bit now, right? Is there some sort of maneuver ya'll haven't tried out?"

"If there is it's only because nobody's thought of it yet. Tell me you love me before my quarter runs out."

"I love you. I want to make fat, happy babies with you. And I want to marry you with all our friends and family watching."

"Yeah. And the whole goddamned country."

"You like the attention."

He shrugged, even though she couldn't see him. Yeah, he kind of liked the attention.

"You looked good on TV last night," he told her. "You're going to end up in politics no matter what you think now," he predicted.

"Bite your tongue."

"Why don't you come down here and bite it for me?"

"Because the secret service doesn't like me to go places where black suits stand out. So the Math department is as far as I'm headed."

"Good night, Marian. Head on over to Tiffany's and see what sparkles the most."

"I don't want a diamond!" she shouted over the increasing static.

"What the hell?"

"Be creative - - no diamonds, no pearls."

"Shit, baby-"

"I love you! Goodnight!"


	6. diamonds and roughs

So he bought her a ruby - - the biggest, darkest ruby he could find. Set around the square stone on one side were seven tiny heart-shaped emeralds. On the other were four thin aquamarines baguettes. And hidden on the underside of the band were embedded tiny chips of citrines, diamond, and opal.

"This ring is beautiful," Grace Marshall enthused the night after her daughter bounced into her bedroom wearing the bauble. "It's so unique."

"That's Marian, ma'am. She deserves the best. I thought she was crazy when she told me she didn't want a diamond, but I can see why. Everybody gets diamonds. This way she knows I put some thought into it."

"Did you hear that, Jim?" she asked her husband. Tip still wasn't real comfortable with the idea of the President of the United States making him a drink. But he was obedient enough to sit and take it like a man. "You're going to have to work pretty hard or you're going to be shown up by a twenty-year-old boy."

Jim Marshall smiled as he handed over her drink. "It's a waste of time trying to compete with your beauty, dearest darling love. No stone, no setting, no jewel in the world can compare. And why would I spend so much time away from you when the effort is fruitless…when I can send an aide out and stay close to your aura instead?"

"Lame, dad," Alice intoned. "Larry here won't tell me what the stones mean."

"Marian knows. That's all that matters," Tip told her.

"I'd love to know," Marshall told him, looking intimidating.

"No you wouldn't, Dad," Marian told him. "Let it go."

That night Grace Marshall squirmed up onto the bed in between her two daughters. Alice and Marian were updating the pages they kept on the official White House Website. She scanned briefly what the girls were blogging, then sighed and reached for her oldest's left hand.

"That is one hell of a ring," she said bluntly.

Alice giggled. She'd missed the proposal and toast. Missed the awkward moment when Tip had asked her father's blessing - - _not_ his permission, James Marshall had grumbled later. Missed the tearful moment when Marian had told their mother.

"I think it's beautiful," the little girl said.

Marian held her hand, shifting it in the light. "I love the sparkle. I know that's shallow. And I love the size. Solid. But sturdy, too. And built well enough that I don't think I'm going to be knocking stones out in my graceful moments."

Grace drew her hand close again. "I'm still dying to know the deeper meaning."

"Seven continents, four oceans, all his love, no matter where he is."

Grace met her elder daughter's eyes at the quiet, serious words. "That's what he told you?"

She nodded. "That's what he told me." She slipped off the ring so her mother could read the inscription punctuated with the precious stones.

"_Magic like the moon and stars, faithful as the sun's rising, mine forever_."

The moment of silence that passed was broken by the sound of Marian's broken inhalation.

Alice reached over to squeeze her sister's right hand. "He'll be fine, Mari. I know it. You'll have a beautiful wedding and you'll finish your degree and eventually you'll run the world together."

Marian smiled down at her even as her face clouded with tears. Grace tugged her head down to her shoulder. "Oh, baby..."

Sobs escaped. "I'm so afraid," Marian confided. "I'm terrified. I love him so much. I want to ask Dad to get him reassigned to some listening post in Antarctica or somewhere. I want to spend the rest of my life with him and I damn well want him safe and sound for it! I'm so selfish! What the hell is wrong with me?"

Grace laughed. She rocked a bit, both girls clinging to her. "You're fine, Marian. You're just fine. Tired, maybe. And emotionally overwrought." She laughed. "And engaged. Old enough to be engaged. To a handsome, clever, funny boy." A little sound escaped. "Man," she corrected. "A brave man. I can't promise you clear skies and bright stars, but I can promise you this: that man out there loves you. I'm thinking it scares him a little bit how much, too. How 'bout you both spend the night here tonight rather than driving back to your apartment? I'll make Daddy understand. Or you can pretend to be sleeping in here with Alice. But for some reason I'd just like to keep you close tonight. My whole family..."

Marian smiled up at her mother. "Tip is family now, isn't he? I mean...not just mine, but yours, too."

Grace nodded. This beautiful child who looked like her was staring up at her with those eyes that had always seen so much. "He's ours now, too. Stockings at Christmas and baskets at Easter and there'd better be cards for mother's day, so make sure he knows that. Now go wash your face and I'll go rescue him from your father. I'll make a decree that he's had too much to drink to drive and send one of the stewards to get him a fresh uniform."

Alice was watching, fascinated. Her innocent face was alight with amazement when she turned back again. "Mother! I cannot believe you're-"

"Shush, little one," Grace Marshall chided. "You've no room to be judgmental. Your sister's a basketcase. Between dating a man in special operations and working on her masters she doesn't know if she's coming or going and I doubt she gets any sleep whatsoever. So you just hush and make the appropriate sympathetic noises."

Alice smiled. "Someday I'm going to learn to direct people like you do. You run the whole world and everybody thinks it's their idea when it's really yours."

The older woman chucked her under the chin and leaned down to kiss her. "Good night, angel. Sleep well."

"Good night. Don't worry. I'll help you take care of Mari."

Grace related the conversation to her husband that night in their bed - - after she'd soothed his concerns and disquietude in her usual fashion.

"That's exactly what I'm talking about," he argued. "She's got too much on her and she's not stable right now. If she loves him she has nothing to fear."

"Love is fear," she corrected. "All the time. It's joy, too, but the fear is there. And you know it. I can't imagine how she gets through the hours knowing he's on a mission. If she wonders whether he's really training or deployed. You'd know more about the truth in that than either of us do and we know enough to be frantic. Besides, I'm thinking you're going to want to get behind a quick, elaborate wedding."

"You think we're going to lose the election and she won't be able to have it at National Cathedral?"

Grace Marshall shook her head. "I'm thinking that behind the emotion is some raging hormone."

"Yet another reason to postpone as long as possible. Teenaged pheromones are-"

"Nothing compared to the see-saw of being pregnant. Don't you see it? The manic high followed by the hysteria? Don't you remember - - with both the girls I would laugh and laugh and suddenly find myself sobbing."

James Marshall growled. "I will kill that young man..."

His wife tugged at him. "You will not. You will remember that he is the one who took direct action and got our daughter off that plane before a gun was pulled. She has enough nightmares without the added imagery of Major Caldwell being shot and a gun being turned on you by one of our own."

"Shit."

"That's what I thought," she crowed.

"You're going to owe me for this."

He could practically see her rubbing her hands together. "I can't wait. It's going to be wonderful. Teas and showers and rehearsals. We'll pay for it all, seeing as he doesn't have any people-"

"At least there won't be tuxedo fittings. His side will be in uniform."

"Wouldn't hurt for you to be in uniform, too," she reminded him.

He scoffed. "I don't have a dress uniform anymore. And I'm a reservist. There's no way-"

Grace pouted. She was well over forty and that pout should have been left in her girlhood. He couldn't say why it affected him like it did. But it did. Particularly when she was also rubbing those sly little hands of hers all over him while she pouted up at him.

"Shit."


End file.
